Today's Polls: Gallup Snaps Back Into Line

June 29, 2008

Hardly a full diet of polling today but just an amuse bouche. In Arizona, Rasmussen
has the state's Senior Senator leading by 9 points; he had held a
20-point lead in Rasmussen's last poll of Arizona dated back in April.
As I've pointed out before, Arizona -- with its older population and
what remains a comparative lack of Democratic Party infrastructure --
would probably favor John McCain by 3-5 points even if he were not from
there. Attempts by either campaign to claim Arizona as a swing state
are probably just an exercise in spin.

Arguably the more interesting result is in the Gallup Daily Tracker,
which shows Obama pulling 4 points ahead of McCain after having been
tied with him for several days. When you see a result like this -- when
a poll steps back into line with other polls -- it should not be read
as momentum for one or another candidate so much as reversion to the
mean. Nevertheless, just yesterday
I was suggesting that there might have been just a smidgen of momentum
toward John McCain in the polling numbers, and now that is harder to
see.